One Man's Blog

Specialization is for Insects.

Home / Tutorials / How to Invite ALL Facebook Friends to a Group, Event or Page

How to Invite ALL Facebook Friends to a Group, Event or Page

John P.

By


Friend John P. on
Facebook!

I set up a couple of groups on Facebook – our Wealth Nation group (PLEASE JOIN!) and the Stop the Farmville Madness!!! group – and wanted to invite all my friends, but it would have taken an eternity because for some strange reason Facebook doesn’t allow you to “select all” friends when sending an invite. I mean, they’ll let you do it… but only if you click one at a time! Uugh.

Well anyway I went on a little search and found that you could cheat the Facebook system by inserting a little javascript to make it happen! Here is how to do it:


  1. Go to your Facebook Event, Facebook Group or Facebook page and click “Invite People”.
  2. Once the page has loaded you should see all of your friends, but they are not selected.
  3. At this point, copy and paste the javascript code below into your Web browser’s address bar, then hit “Enter”.
  4. If all goes well, it selects all of your friends!
  5. IMPORTANT: NOW YOU MUST WAIT!!! If you have a lot of Facebook friends, you have to leave that window open for a long time so it sends all of the invitations! I have about 1,400 and it took like 15-20 minutes to send all of the invitations. The Invite window will close when its done. So exercise patience!!!!!!!!!!

javascript:elms=document.getElementById('friends').getElementsByTagName('li');for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === 'object'){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

If that first method doesn’t work for you give this a try:

Right click the “friend box” and open it in a new tab:
Then paste this ==> javascript: fs.select_all()


Finally, there is now a GreaseMonkey script for Firefox to Invite All Facebook Friends if you want to try that as well..

Oh, and by the way, if you found this helpful please tweet it or share it on Facebook to help others find it too. The more people who share it, the more people it helps! It takes some time for all of the Facebook invites to be sent. They go into a queue. So if you saw them all get selected, just be patient. The messages WILL get delivered over the next 24 hours or so.


UPDATE

If none of that is working for you, Michael Quale developed a little Chrome plugin which I personally tested and it did the trick. You can get it on the Chrome browser store here. And here is a little video of it working.

Again, that one is only for Chrome users, but I highly recommend that everyone use Chrome anyway…

About John P.

John P. is a former CEO, former TV Show Host, and the Founder and Wizard behind Texas Metal Works. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Feel free to send shoutouts, insults, and praise. Or Money. Money is good.

Comments

  1. marco says

    i found the answer by someone on the net:

    javascript:javascript:var elms=document.getElementsByName(“checkableitems[]”);for(var count=0;count<elms.length;count++){var t = setTimeout("elms["+count+"].click()",2000)}

    scroll down till you SEE all your friends! maybe change the '2000' to the amount of friends, but i have less than 2000 and this worked. it makes sense that the earlier mentioned 100 works only for 100
    secret is to scroll down!

  2. jackie moore says

    it’s not working? where do I paste the code? do you delete the address and then paste?? im confused

  3. Emily says

    I’ve tried this javascript before, maybe a month ago and it worked great. I just created an event and would like to invite all my friends and it’s no longer working.. I tried the updated code you posted also… any suggestions?

  4. nycdj says

    How can you add people to a GROUP page? I know how to add everyone for an event invite i need one for the group page

  5. Richard says

    Hey friend. Thanks for clueing me in as to what’s going on. Your scripts didn’t work for me for some reason. But i found one that did. Hope this might help a couple of your readers in the same boat:

    javascript:elms=document.getElementsByName(“checkableitems[]”);for (i=0;i<elms.length;i++){if (elms[i].type="checkbox" )elms[i].click()};

  7. gioele says

    hi..i’ve find but the new two codes don’t working!! I’ve find with mac & windows … explorer & safari … :(( … thanx

  8. shiri says

    hi! tnx!! it worked once perfectly… but now i want to invite to another event, and then when i put it on the address bar and hit enter- it shows the google search results for this code, instead of doing magic.. wht should i do for preventing it from happening?

  9. Thom says

    Try this

    javascript:javascript:var elms=document.getElementsByName(“checkableitems[]”);for(var count=0;count<elms.length;count++){var t = setTimeout("elms["+count+"].click()",100)}

  10. fima says

    The new code
    —————
    Facebook just changed (on march 15th 2011) the way to invite friends to event, so a new script is needed.
    The code I came up with is:
    Version 1:
    javascript:elms=document.getElementsByName(“checkableitems[]”);for (i=0;i<elms.length;i++){if (elms[i].type="checkbox" )elms[i].click()};

    Version 2:
    javascript:javascript:var elms=document.getElementsByName("checkableitems[]");for(var count=0;count<elms.length;count++){var t = setTimeout("elms["+count+"].click()",100)}

    ENJOY

  11. D says

    It worked for me a couple times in IE 7 then it went bad..!! Before I tried this I used a different method for inviting all my friends to an event. I have all my friends divided into groups of 75 or so. I would open the invite friends window and select the group from the drop down menu and then there was a button to ‘select all’. Hit that and it selects the whole group then hit invite… boom, the whole group invited. I then tried entering this code to do everyone I had at the same time.. worked for a cpl of events but then now nothing happens when I add the url. But the box that pops up w your friends in it looks different… a little wider and the friends icons are smaller and you can see more. Then when I select the group as before, the ‘select all’ button no longer appears. So I have to click all the names everytime. WTF…!! Takes forever… I installed Chrome and same thing..? Is Facebook making it hard for me to send invites to punish me..? How can I change this..?? Help..!! even being able to go back to my old way would be fine….

  12. sean says

    PLEASE HELP !!!!!… its not working for me anymore tryed it ten time in firefox and internet explorer… left it on over night and still it did not select all friends…. what code and browser works for you ?????

  13. Valu says

    Hi
    Great post!! Works fantastic when invited over 3000 to an event. But this doesnt seem to work when you want to ‘suggest a page’ to friends to join ??
    Any ideas ??
    Many thanks
    Valu

  14. Victor says

    Hi Well the code worked only once for me .
    I m trying to use but for some reason it no longer works .
    Does someone knows a new code , the same thing Happened with the Chrome extension the first time i used worked brillhant but the second time it did not work at all there was no longer the toggle bar .
    I tried everything but unfortunately for me it worked only one time .
    Is there another way to select all my friends if so please let me know .
    Regards Victor from Brazil

  16. AC says

    Facebook caught on and this script no longer works. They changed how they list friends in the invite window. HELP! We need a new script code!

  17. Jude says

    I m trying to invite my friends for an event, except that my pop that comes up when you hit invite friends for this event has a check box next to their names ? is there any script that would help with that ! really need as soon as possible can some one help ?

  18. Ted Riser says

    This has helped beyond belief. Thanks for sharing this. I have a band with over 1000 friends and it was nearly impossible to communicate with them.

  19. Melissa says

    If anyone creates a new code for this I’d be most pleased to receive it thanks very much! i have nearly 5k friends and facebook is used for my business so its a bummer this takes me so long. This code used to work for me but no longer does – I did the “legit” thing and put my friends into groups of 300+ to invite to events but each time I go to invite friends it takes 25 mins for a window to even load my friends list when I click “invite friends” and then another 20 for it to load the friend list, then waits 10 mins until I can select all.

    Facebook sucks – even when you do things their way you still can’t win!!

  20. Fabrizio says

    Facebook’s look is changed. Now selecting friends is different: “check-boxes to check” instead of “areas to select”… Doesn’t work anymore for me… O.o Heeelp!!!

  21. Cliff Kearn says

    I like the valuable information you supply on your articles. I’ll bookmark your weblog and check again here frequently. I am relatively sure I will learn a lot of new stuff right right here! Best of luck for the next!

  22. Tracy says

    I tried the code and it work on the 9 friends that show up but when you click to look at the net page of friends they are not highlighted so it only selects 9, not all of them. I am trying to send everyone an invite to an event, is this why??

  23. Ana says

    I tried the short code and the long code to invite my friends to an event. The short code will highlight all images of friends and you can press send. But Facebook, internally, must block large batches of invites. My 2,000 weren’t sent.

    So I tried again with the other option by downloading Google Chrome and added the “invite Facebook friends” extension. I selected all my friends, they were all highlighted and the invites sent.

    When I look at the main event invites waiting a reply, the 2,000 plus I sent, were never officially sent by facebook. I’ll check for a few days more and see if FB just has a pause or block on bulk numbers of invites.

    But none of these are working anymore.

  24. drizzy says

    This is not working for me. It says the invites are sent but they are not seen on the page. It has 0 awaiting reply. some one help me.

  25. zbiggs says

    this is not working for me. I am using IE and I dont have an option to “open frame in new tab”. is there another way to do this?

  30. Candy says

    Did you guys notice that Facebook deactivated the “Suggest to friends” option for Fan Pages if you are not the owner/admin of that page?!??!

    So if you let’s say you like the Greenpeace page and want to suggest it to your friends, there is NO OPTION for you to do that anymore. The Suggest to Friends button dissapeared!

    How stupid can that still get ?!?!

    Are Fan Pages also a “to be discontinued” product?
    The new groups also marked a HUGE setback, I don’t know if any of you use them I find them completely useless. I wonder if those guys at FB did that “upgrade” (read downgrade) after a wodka party or smth.
    That’s how Zuck is going to bust this thing … and that day is getting nearer and nearer

    the script did not work for me by the way … in no browser …

  31. Rodrigo X says

    Facebook changed, and there’s a new way.
    I have Firefox 3.6 and it works for me.
    Simply press “Suggest to friends”, then RIGHT Click on the friends box and there should be an option called “Frame…”, click on it and then “Open frame on a new tab” or “Open frame on a new window”.
    Then just paste the code in address bar.
    I hope I helped!
    -Rodrigo Medeiros

  32. Phil says

    Hey,

    Facebook changed and when you invite friends there’s checkboxes. The scripts don’t work for me anymore, anyone have any ideas?!

    Thanks.

    Phil

  36. Georege says

    Hi there, I have used “javascript: fs.select_all()” and it seems that Facebook does not let me to invite anymore Friends. In the “invitation box” all friends are dimmed! Should I be worried? Does anyone knows something about this issue?

    Any help would be very appreciated!

    Regards

    George

  41. Tim says

    I tried this last night, and either 1) it doesn’t work anymore, or 2) it doesn’t work on large (1,000+) lists. I Have just over 1,000 friends (not real ones, of course), and about 100 are profiles I created. None of my 100 other accounts received the invite, even though their name in the Invite Friends list was disabled afterward (suggesting they received the invite). So I no longer have the ability to invite those 1,000 people to that page. I tried again manually with another page, selecting about 150 people at a time, and they all went through. I’m assuming Facebook may have put a limit on the amount that can be sent at a time.

  42. Ryan H says

    It’s stopped working for me at completely now! I have tried using IE, Firefox and Chrome and it didn’t work on any of them. I have however used it in the past and it worked fine, but for the past few months I have had to click on every single friend to invite. Any ides what the problem may be?

  43. petar says

    Hi…This scrip is great idea! :) It work’s! But…I don’t know, if I want invite 4000 friends from my facebook profile to new fan page, will the facebook delete my account caus’ the spaming or…?

    Thx

  46. Jonny Carse says

    thanks for this info! i got just under 500 friends and it only took a few seconds to load :D cheers

  49. 'Christian Flingan Bergquist @FB says

    Sorry but this java skript doesn’t work for me :O i have pasted it into my webbrowser adresslist and pressed enter *no firends selected*

    javascript:elms=document.getElementById(‘friends’).getElementsByTagName(‘li’);for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === ‘object’){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

  50. George says

    Greetings guys! I tried to invite all of my friends to my fan page several day ago..
    I used javascript code. I clicked on “suggest to friends”.. A window came out but it was emty.. The list of my friends did not show up.. I tried it over and over again but it didn’t work..
    Can anyone helm me?
    Best wishes

    • George B says

      Try to wait few mins. If you have over 2000 friends or something along those lines, Facebook takes few mins to calculate all those profiles.

      Regards

  53. Tyler says

    it used to work for everything but now it just seems to be working with event invites… NOT “suggest to friend” for pages… i tried a multiple browsers and i got the same result… is this the same for everyone? (ps. i did try the google chrome extension which works great, but i’d like the regular code to work too)

  55. Crunch says

    It’s still working. At first I thought that code doesn’t work too, but if you’ve got a large number to invite, just wait for it to gradually send invites. It doesn’t work in one go if you’ve got 1k+ of invites.

    Successfully invited 4k people just now, but it took about 30mins-1hr for the invites to be sent.

  60. Chris says

    Unfortunately this does not work in Internet Explorer. I have yet to find a code that does. This stinks for me because I absolutely love IE and refuse to give it up for any other browser. I know alot of people have fallen in love with Firefox and Chrome, but I don’t like either one. Oh well, maybe one day someone will find something that works in IE.

  61. Matt says

    Doesn’t work for me (Safari and Firefox). I’ve tried both java script + the Greasemonkey thing :(

    It used to weork in the past tought

  62. cyguy says

    the second method- open in new tab and select all code still works, just if firefox u can open frame in new tab then use the code

  64. Jeppe says

    Yes, it seems to be that the Google Chrome “toogle” still works, but not as good as the code… So we still need a new one!

  66. lindsay says

    I’ve been trying to figure out how to invite all my Facebook friends to follow my blog but there’s a 16 friend limit per day. I’m using NetworkedBlogs app. When I use the java script code it only selects 16. Does anyone know a way around that?

    Thanks :)

  68. mark says

    cant get this to work.. im in my fanpage and there is no “Invite friends” there is suggest to friends.. so when i click that a pop up box appears with my friends, so this is where i copy and paste the script into the address bar of the same page and click enter.. when i do that nothing happens.. just stays the same…

    What am i doing wrong?

    thanks

  69. paul says

    Hi, is this link still working to “add” all friends?
    i tried both suggestions and my browser says there is an error with the script on the page.
    thanks!

  70. Puneet says

    this code does not seem to work since a week now..i tried it in all the browsers..IE, chrome and firefox..
    have they disabled it??

  71. Andrew says

    Thanks. However this only works for events not for Groups. Not even if you use Google Chrome (?). Is there a way to drag the selected friends from the Event Invite to the Group Invite?
    Thanks,
    A

  81. Sue Berliner says

    Thanks. This worked awesome. It did take about 30 plus minutes to select my 2255 friends but I could do something else in that time, like make dinner. Thanks again.

  82. Missy says

    AAA
    Now Groups are different…
    you have (auto) ADD Friends to Group and you have to type the name…it allows only 20 names at a time. How can we invite all our friends all in once?

    • Andrew says

      Agreed. Any progress on your end? Even with Google Chrome, Groups seem to be a headache compared to the event invites…..
      cheers, Andrew

  83. alvin says

    hi,
    so this code doesnt work at all right? pls enlightened me.. even in google chrome, the toggle all is there and seems like it send the invitations but in actual fact, friends did not receive this at all.. pls correct me if i am wrong..

  84. ebony penny says

    Hi this link used to work, and now it doesn’t. Is there a limit to how many people you can invite to a page? Why would it stop working?

    Thanks

    • Ken McDaniel says

      Forgot to mention, It works best in Google Chrome. Firefox tends to freeze and dont bother trying it in IE! Also keep in mind to invite people before hitting the create event!

  86. Jane says

    This is a good method, but the last couple of days work. friends with Mark,
    send invitations, but users will not.

    Does anyone know why?

    Thank you very much for your answers.

  88. Ąntho Ćezh (アヘクタール) says

    Wow! That was like magic! I really wanted to send this invite to everyone, but there was no way I was going to click hundreds of individual people…THANKS!

  89. Arnold says

    Thank You So much! It works but it didn’t work on my mac. When switched to a regular PC it worked just fine…

  91. Shannon says

    Wow! That was like magic! I really wanted to send this invite to everyone, but there was no way I was going to click hundreds of individual people…THANKS!

  96. Ąntho Ćezh (ハーマン) says

    I just used this alternative method writing “javascript: fs.select_all()” in the adress bar while the friendlist were visible. Worked like a charm :-)

  97. Mortn says

    I just used this alternative method writing “javascript: fs.select_all()” in the adress bar while the friendlist were visible. Worked like a charm :-)

  100. Russ says

    Out of all these comments, I’ve noticed the keyword missing is “All”. So this is my way I did it and worked!
    1. Click on “Invite People to Join”
    2. In the box where all your friends(pics) are, right click on the word “All”(which should be highlighted) in the upper right corner of the box and click on “Open Link in New Window” (or tab).
    3. Once there, then paste the code, javascript: fs.select_all() in your address bar and click enter. That should do it.